(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to novel boron nitride compounds which are useful as a catalyst for the production of boron nitride of the cubic system. It also relates to a process for preparing such boron nitride compounds and a process for producing boron nitride of the cubic system by using such boron nitride compounds.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
As is well known, boron nitride of the cubic system has a hardness close to that of diamond and is excellent over diamond in the chemical stability. Therefore, the demand for cubic boron nitride as an abrasive material such as an abrasive grain is now increasing.
For the industrial production of this cubic boron nitride, there has ordinarily been adopted a method wherein a mixture of a hexagonal boron nitride powder with a catalyst powder is heated at a high pressure of about 40 to about 60 Kbar and a high temperature of about 1,400.degree. to about 1,600.degree. C. to convert boron nitride of the hexagonal cubic system to boron nitride of the cubic system. As the catalyst used in this method, nitrides of alkali metals or alkaline earth metals, and boron nitride ternary compounds consisting of an alkali metal or alkaline earth metal, nitrogen and boron, for example, Ca.sub.3 B.sub.2 N.sub.4 and Li.sub.3 BN.sub.2 are known. According to this method, hexagonal boron nitride is dissolved in a melt of the catalyst and cubic boron nitride is precipitated by utilizing the fact that the solubility of cubic boron nitride in the eutectic melt is lower than that of hexagonal boron nitride under the preparation conditions.
It is required for an abrasive material to have a high mechanical strength, especially a high crushing strength, and from the viewpoint of the strength, it is required that the abrasive material should have a good grain shape characteristic. That is, the abrasive grain should have neither a flat shape nor a shape having sharp edges but it should have a shape as spherical as possible and the presence of convexities and concavities on the surface of the grain should be avoided. In the conventional method for the production of cubic boron nitride using the above-mentioned nitride (binary compound) or boron nitride ternary compound as the catalyst, however, it is difficult to obtain cubic boron nitride having high mechanical strengths and a good grain shape characteristic. Namely, according to the conventional method using a known catalyst, the desired mechanical strengths and grain shape characteristic cannot be obtained unless the preparation conditions are controlled considerably precisely.
The inventor made researches with a view to improving the mechanical strength and grain shape characteristic of cubic boron nitride by using a catalyst different from the known catalysts heretofore used in the art. As the result, a novel substance could be prepared, and it has been found that this novel substance is valuable as a catalyst for the synthesis of cubic boron nitride and when this novel substance is used as the catalyst, cubic boron nitride which is prominently excellent in the mechanical strengths and grain shape characteristic over products obtained according to the conventional method can be prepared.